▶ Your Answer :
The lecturer contends that imposing congestion
charges is a good solution to reduce traffic and increase revenue of the city. This
contradicts the reading passage’s argument that charging congestion fees is not
a good way to solve the traffic problems.
To begin with, the speaker claims that
congestion charges would not damage businesses in the city. The example of
London is misled because it was during the recession. To be specific, the sales
fall was the same between the fee zone and the other zone during the time. In
addition, after the economy recovered, the sales in the fee zone and the other
zone increased at the same time. This counters the claim in the reading passage
that congestion charges would hurt businesses in the city due to decrease in
shoppers.
On top of that, the lecturer argues that
most of the people with low incomes would not be damaged by the fee because
they are already using public transportation instead of driving cars. On the
contrary, the traffic would be decreased by the fee, and this would make buses
move more quickly. Consequently, working people can reach their workplace more
rapidly. This casts doubt on the claim made by the reading passage that the
extra fee would put a financial burden on people struggling financially.
Lastly, the lecturer maintains that the fee
would not cause the increase in delivery expenses. Instead, this would make
delivery companies consolidate their delivery and enhance their efficiency. As
a result, the traffic would be declined, and trucks can move more quickly. This
would lead to the stabilization of delivery prices. This refutes the reading
passage’s idea that small companies will suffer from the results of the
increase in delivery expenses.
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